At the moment they're focused on Heart of the Swarm, which will release in March of 2013. Once that's released, they will probably focus a lot more on the expansion to Diablo 3. I wouldn't expect a release before Spring 2014.

They haven't even revealed the true PvP system at this point. They haven't even begun beta testing it. Beta testing will probably take about 6 months. Its very likely PvP will not be in D3 until over 1 full year after the game was released.

They haven't even revealed the true PvP system at this point. They haven't even begun beta testing it. Beta testing will probably take about 6 months. Its very likely PvP will not be in D3 until over 1 full year after the game was released.

6 months to beta test PvP? That makes no sense, entire expansion packs for WoW dont even stay in beta that long. PvP will not be balanced in Diablo 3, which means that there is a great chance that PvP wont even be beta tested outside of Blizzard HQ.

I would be willing to bet that Blizzard is adding a battle ground type system along with the original idea of Arena style PvP Deathmatches. Blizzard knows that it needs to add another layer of meaningful end game for Diablo 3. The original concept of PvP will no longer be enough. Blizzard will surprise us all.

TBH, I hope they design PvP as being completely separate from PvE. After seeing what PvP does to WoW's PvE balance, I don't want that happening in D3 as well. I don't want to see classes getting nerfed left and right because of PvP. They should do what Rift does, and make spells have different effects in PvP, and apply spell nerfs only to PvP areas.

Originally Posted by Precursor

"Fall of therzane....." ....um what? if that woman fell , god help us it will be the second cataclysm

6 months to beta test PvP? That makes no sense, entire expansion packs for WoW dont even stay in beta that long. PvP will not be balanced in Diablo 3, which means that there is a great chance that PvP wont even be beta tested outside of Blizzard HQ.

I would be willing to bet that Blizzard is adding a battle ground type system along with the original idea of Arena style PvP Deathmatches. Blizzard knows that it needs to add another layer of meaningful end game for Diablo 3. The original concept of PvP will no longer be enough. Blizzard will surprise us all.

Two things:

1. It is already less than 6 months before the 1 year anniversary of D3 release. The 6 month anniversary was November 15th. So even if it is shorter than 6 months, it may go beyond the 1 year anniversary.

2. It takes about 6 months for Blizz to release a WoW xpac. Keep in mind, however, that Blizz devotes far more resources and man-hours to WoW than to D3. Even if PvP is less content than a WoW xpac, they've got fewer people working on it.

TBH, I hope they design PvP as being completely separate from PvE. After seeing what PvP does to WoW's PvE balance, I don't want that happening in D3 as well. I don't want to see classes getting nerfed left and right because of PvP. They should do what Rift does, and make spells have different effects in PvP, and apply spell nerfs only to PvP areas.

Doubt you will see nerfs because of pvp. PvP will be a joke balance wise anyways and I doubt that they intent to act once again like it wasn't.

i hope they wont push an expasion for d3 beacause the core game is more then boring and stale

It's funny because when D2 was released, people were whining and complaining about it and calling it terrible...and now 10 years later people praise it as one of the best Rougelike games ever and say it's way better than D3.

Mark my words, 5-7 years from now people will be raving over D3, calling it an epic masterpiece of an RPG, while saying D4 is shitty and terrible. :P

Originally Posted by whoranzone

Doubt you will see nerfs because of pvp. PvP will be a joke balance wise anyways and I doubt that they intent to act once again like it wasn't.

Ehhh, maybe. They might just leave it unbalanced and say "We're not balancing it because PvP/dueling isn't the focus, deal with it", but from what I saw of the Arena stuff during the Blizzcons and such, making a balanced PvP system would be nice. Like I said, they could just make PvP its own separate...thing. Make nerfs/buffs that only affect you while you're in PvP environments and such, like Rift does.

Originally Posted by Precursor

"Fall of therzane....." ....um what? if that woman fell , god help us it will be the second cataclysm

It's funny because when D2 was released, people were whining and complaining about it and calling it terrible...and now 10 years later people praise it as one of the best Rougelike games ever and say it's way better than D3.

Well to be fair though might be because I wasn't involved in the official forum community but I don't remember even half as many threads criticizing the game on the sides I was frequenting in comparison to now.
And having a different set of rules for each game mode is certainly a good way but I have my reservations that it would be enough. Regardless I am pretty sure they will leave it at "deal with it" anyways.

It's funny because when D2 was released, people were whining and complaining about it and calling it terrible...and now 10 years later people praise it as one of the best Rougelike games ever and say it's way better than D3.

I have no idea what are you talking about.

I used d2 battle.net forum all the time to trade items and discuss game mechanics.
I don't remember any threads like that at all.

I would not even imaging a thread like this. There was no reason to create such thread. There were not too many games around, so you had to either like it or not like it, there was nothing to discuss.

There were some complains about low resolution, bugs and (much later) duping, but no one complained that the game was bad.
There were few complains about game mechanics when LoD came out. Some people did not like synergy and charms that took slots. Some people said that expansion is too small.

But overall the reception of both original game and expansion on official and unofficial forums was extremely positive.

Comparing to the current state of official forums where every single d3 thread consists almost entirely of whining and flood, d2 original forums looked extraordinary positive and helpful. Well, at least for the first few years, have no idea what happened to them later.

If you want to talk about specific issues, I can think of some. People hated the fact that not all classes were truly viable in endgame. The necro suffered the most from that. For a long time, they were undertuned for endgame. But the game was awesome and all agreed.

an expansion will take them most likely, at a minimum, a year and a half from the launch of d3. their collective resources im sure are busy busy with the 2nd sc2 expansion, and the first raid patch for WoW. id bet the first raid patch will be out in early-mid feb. then heart of the swarm in march and then another raid patch in august maybe? then maybe start seeing some hints towards a d3 expansion.

pvp patch for d3 will come after first of the year i predict, maybe before first raid patch of WoW and heart of the swarm. this is just assuming they stick to their guns and keep up with their "faster content" releases